Wednesday, June 9, 2010 - Page updated at 12:46 PM

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Khambatta Dance Company tops off a fine 'Spotlight on Seattle' evening with some blanket-wrestling that turns into a sublime duet

By Michael Upchurch

Seattle Times arts writer

Deft duos. Quirky solo work. Ensemble pieces akin to visual music.

"Spotlight on Seattle" â€” a three-night survey of the local dance scene that's part of Seattle International Dance Festival: Beyond the Threshold â€” got off to a dynamic start on Tuesday with a program of work by six choreographers, curated by Eva Stone.

Stone's own group, The Stone Dance Collective, opened the evening with "Stick Figures," a springy, feisty tussle that offers genuine pleasures. The standout: Morgan Houghton, whose spry, elastic grace made something as simple as a slow-motion cartwheel a heady treat.

He was kept good company by Lizzy Melton â€” who later made her own choreographic premiere with "Sub Basement." Set on dancer Emilee Putsche, this solo piece followed a dark-clad figure in conflict with herself, sometimes moving with tentative slowness, sometimes literally slapping herself down.

Melton proved a gifted soloist herself in Mark Haim's "Buoyant Despite Slump (My Raymonda)." Haim matched some unlikely moves with his chosen score: the lush second movement of Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1. But Melton made sense of them all, whether slow and spiraling or antic and abrupt, without ever mocking the music. The final effect was beautiful, absurd, mysterious.

There was a fine mystery, too, in Coriolis Dance Collective's aptly named "Tethered Apparitions," choreographed by Natascha Greenwalt-Murphy. On a stage dimly lamp-lit at floor level, Danny Boulet and Christin Call opened with a stunner of a sinuous duet. The ensuing pairings, snarings and enfoldings â€” not to mention the out-of-left-field lifts â€” mixed gymnastic strength with elegant form.

Michael Rioux's "Wild Fruit Study #1" was the edgiest entry in the lot. Greenwalt-Murphy and Monica Mata Gilliam, dressed in hot Carmen Miranda colors, moved to a sound collage concocted by Rioux himself with Mikhail Kaschok. The two leaned on each other, struck precarious balances, sprang apart. Fun, tricky stuff.

Still, the most glorious moment of the show came with Khambatta Dance Company's Chris McCallister and Morgan Nutt performing Cyrus Khambatta's "Pendulum." This tour-de-force starts off as a blanket-hogging contest in bed, then becomes a kind of trio as the disputed blanket asserts its role as sling, tether and leash. In the dance's second part, the blanket is discarded and the lovers enter a game of glancing collisions and mirror moves that keep going in and out of sync. The way McCallister and Nutt smoothly ricocheted their way through attractions and rebuffs was a knockout.

Beyond the Threshold continues tonight with a program curated by Pat Graney that includes Dayton Allemann's technically ingenious keyboard/video/performance piece, "Shoulder," about having to bike between Seattle and Bellevue because he's too poor to afford bus fare. Haruko Nishimura of Degenerate Art Ensemble, also scheduled to perform, has had to cancel, alas, due to a back injury. The lineup also includes Stimulate Dance, Joan Laage's Kogut Butoh, PV/LAN1 (Pilar Villanueva), Skoveworks/Annie Hewlett and more from Khambatta Dance Company.

"Spotlight on Seattle" continues Thursday with another strong lineup, this one curated by Spectrum Dance Theater's Donald Byrd, whose Merce Cunningham-inspired piece, "The Possibility of Not Being," is one terrific reason to attend.

Michael Upchurch: mupchurch@seattletimes.com